Digging for dirt on the Hunchback King

Archaeologists may have found the resting place of Richard III – but what is
the truth about this mysterious monarch?

The location of Richard III’s remains is just one part of a much larger mystery surrounding his life and death. Never before – or since – has there been a monarch about whom history has had quite so much to sayPhoto: PA

Under six feet of concrete in a car park in Leicester city centre, behind an old NatWest bank and the offices of a social services department, lie the remains of an ancient church that could hold the key to one of England’s most enduring mysteries.

In a nearby field, more than 500 years ago, two armies faced each other: one led by a young king, the last of the Plantagenet dynasty; the other by the Earl of Richmond, commanding a vicious troop of rebel soldiers. A decisive battle ended in the death of the King and the birth of a dynasty that would last for 122 years. Richard III was the king; the fight was the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. This was the battle that sowed the seeds of modern England, putting an end to years of bloody civil war and marking the start of a period of stability. After 30 years of rivalry and bloodshed between the Houses of Lancaster and York, the Wars of the Roses were over, the fight for the throne had been won and the king was dead. Richard’s wounded body was stripped naked and carried through the streets of Leicester on a horse by his victor, the Tudor Henry VII, before being thrown into a pauper’s grave.

For five centuries, Richard’s remains were thought to be lost forever. Now, archaeologists believe this city centre car park could be the unlikely resting place of the fallen king. In the early hours of this morning, experts from Leicester University began to dig two deep trenches into the concrete. Following ancient maps of the area, they hope to uncover the foundations of Greyfriars church, the Franciscan friary where Henry VII is said to have ordered his rival’s body to be buried. It is the first attempt to uncover Richard III’s burial site, and – if successful – could resolve centuries of fiercely contested debate about the king and his final battle.

“One has to admit that it’s a long shot,” says Richard Buckley, the archaeologist in charge of the project. “We don’t know precisely where the church is, let alone where the burial site is. It has the potential to be very exciting – Richard III is the only king of England whose burial place remains elusive.”

But the location of Richard’s remains is just one part of a much larger mystery surrounding his life and death. Never before – or since – has there been a monarch about whom history has had quite so much to say. Painted as a murderer and a tyrant, many believe he was responsible for killing his nephews, Edward V and the Duke of York (“the Princes in the Tower”), to facilitate his own accession to the throne in 1483. Portraits portray the 32-year-old ruler as deformed and ugly; Shakespeare, in his 1591 play Richard III, describes the king as a “poisonous bunch-backed toad”, a demonic womaniser and a coward.

Members of the Richard III Society, an organisation dedicated to uncovering the truth about his reign, hope that finding a grave could help clear the sullied reputation of a “much-maligned” king.

“So much dirt has been thrown at Richard; his burial represents one of the worst injustices of all time,” says society member Philippa Langley. “The history of the time was written by the Tudors, who could say whatever they wanted. Whatever we find, it will tell us a huge amount about his true nature.”

Archaeologists digging in the Leicester car park this morning are unlikely to shed much light upon Richard’s actions during his life, but the discovery of royal remains could reveal much about his appearance. DNA testing – which may be possible if Richard III’s remains have been preserved in silt – could show whether the Shakespearean portrayal of the king (hunchbacked, with a withered arm and stooping limp) resembled reality.

“Richard was first called a crookback, or a crouchback, by a schoolmaster in York six years after his death,” explains historian Alison Weir, author of The Princes in the Tower. “X-ray analysis shows that portraits of him were painted over after he died to show one shoulder higher than the other. Ambassadors who met Richard don’t mention anything about him having a raised shoulder – if there was any deformity, it is likely to have been slight.”

Philippa Gregory, author of The Tudor series, agrees. “This is a king whose reputation was blackened and destroyed by Shakespeare. It’s important that we don’t take his word for it; his was very much a victors’ history. Finding Richard III’s body could be extremely important archeologically – I imagine there will be talk of a proper burial, perhaps in Westminster Abbey or Fotheringhay Castle [in Northamptonshire], where he was born.”

Even less is known about Richard III’s death. Historians still don’t know how he was killed or by whom – and for years there was controversy surrounding the location of the battlefield. In 2009, an archaeological survey revealed that Ambion Hill in Leicestershire, believed for centuries to be the site of the Battle of Bosworth, was in fact in the wrong place. The proper site is located between a cluster of rural villages, more than a mile away from the award-winning visitor centre built by Leicestershire county council in 1974. Visitors are now directed past the original flag and memorial stone, down a muddy path to a field where the battle is thought to have taken place.

“Location has proven to be an issue in the past – and exactly where Richard III is buried in Greyfriars church will be interesting,” says Anne Curry, professor of medieval history at the University of Southampton. “If he’s found near the high altar, it’s an indication that he was held in relatively high esteem. It won’t do much to redeem his reputation, but it’s an important historical fact.”

Conflicting accounts of the king’s injuries could also be resolved by the dig. Some historians believe he was beaten around the head with a poleaxe; others that Henry VII’s standard-bearers cut him open with their swords. After his death, legend has it that Richard III’s head was split open on Leicester’s Bow Bridge and his coffin used as a horse trough. “Obviously he would have been wearing full armour when he died, but we’d expect some evidence of trauma to be found on the skeleton,” explains Buckley.

There are some who believe the Leicester dig is futile, as Richard III’s remains are no longer at Greyfriars church. In 1611, a local map-maker claimed that the king’s body had been exhumed during the dissolution of the monasteries and thrown into the River Soar.

“This probably isn’t true,” says Weir. “Robert Herrick, mayor of Leicester in the 17th century, built a mansion on the [Greyfriars estate] land and he erected a pillar marking the place where Richard’s body was buried – so he obviously thought it was still there. There are records that Sir Christopher Wren saw the pillar during one of his visits.”

Exactly what the archeologists will find over the next fortnight remains a mystery – much like Richard III’s life and death. To his dedicated followers, however, it’s a chance to put right centuries of biased history propagated by the Tudors. “Richard rode into battle at the very front of his army; no other ruler did that,” says Langley. “When he died, that era of knights and chivalry passed forever. Finding his final resting place is the first step in doing justice to the last, great warrior king.”